Stereographs #1–4 (Rise/Fall)

Deschenes’ Stereograph series was initially conceived for her exhibition at the Secession, Vienna, in 2012. It considers the double nature of the photographic medium by referencing stereoscopy, a historical image production technique that simulates human three-dimensional vision via the placing of two nearly identical pictures at eye distance from each other. When they are viewed through a stereoscopic apparatus, a hybrid of mechanical and natural seeing occurs that creates an illusion of spatiality, while the planar characteristics of the photographs are retained.

The four Stereographs comprising the installation at the gallery are narrow elongated photograms, joined together in angular forms evoking the bellows of a large-format camera, a recurrent motif in Deschenes’ work that alludes to architectural photography. Taking as its point of departure the etymology of the word “camera,” which can be traced to the word “room” from Latin, this series attempts to reframe the configurations of an exhibition space. The works function in a stereo graphic manner: as Johanna Burton wrote, they “must be seen not only as dilating context and insisting on spatial occupation, but also as moving speculatively: developing.”